Introduction
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a COVID-19 pandemic. Estimates of the effectiveness of measures taken in different countries to counter the new disease are contradictory. However, most participants in the discourse agree that the consequences of the pandemic (and the fight against it) will be global and complex. Not only the healthcare sector – all socio-economic institutions are being tested for strength and ability to change. The radical measures to isolate the population had a reason that is difficult to objectively assess, but the negative consequences are already pronounced.
The unprecedented speed of the spread of Covid-19 around the world has made it necessary to change the habitual lifestyle, in particular, to reduce activity, including minimizing contact with people, to stay at home to self-isolate. Incorporating these new norms into everyday life is one way to help reduce the spread of the pandemic (Brody, 2020). Social distancing and discipline are essential in a pandemic and are especially relevant to protect the most vulnerable populations from contracting a dangerous virus, as well as to ensure the effective operation of the health system. Internet technologies (IT) have become an integrated part of life in almost all areas.
Background
In the scientific literature, macrostructural shifts in the economy are extremely rarely associated with such a factor as epidemics, primarily because of the local nature of the spread of the latter. Previous epidemics have not had a serious impact on the economy and stock indices, although the death rate from them was much higher than from the coronavirus. Experts explained the blow to the economy from Covid-19 not by the consequences of the disease itself but by measures to combat it (The Economist, 2019). Unlike previous epidemics, the coronavirus is starting to affect health care and the economy due to its rapid spread outside of Asia. The impact is enhanced by its active coverage in the media.
During the pandemic outbreak in 2003, China’s share of the global GDP was only 4%, now it is more than 16%, and the problems of the Chinese economy have a stronger impact on world markets (Javaid & Khan, 2021). Most global companies either sell a significant proportion of their products in China or have suppliers in China. Investors are predicting that the coronavirus could be the start of a recession due to falling economic activity and declining consumer confidence.
Most of the innovations in the modern world are somehow related to digital technologies based on the efficient use of improving computing power, many of which cannot exist without fast data analytics based on machine analysis. At the same time, the healthcare sector has so far been cautious about large-scale digitalization projects. It prefers the introduction of information innovations aimed at modernizing certain business processes while neglecting complex, strategically developed solutions.
Issues
During this difficult period, IT clearly showed its special role in society. The digital infrastructure available at the time of the pandemic has demonstrated its supportive role in society, ensuring the social and economic interaction of people in conditions of isolation (Vinh, 2021). For millions of people, having a home computer with Internet access has become the key to staying employed during a crisis. Business without an Internet presence was on the brink of ruin, and companies that mastered advanced technologies in addition to basic IT increased their advantages in sharply increased digital competition.
WHO, assessing the quality of life, combines physical and psychological health, social relationships and the environment, and the feelings of individuals in the context of their culture, value system, goals, and interests. The situation of a pandemic and mass isolation has a complex effect on all of the above components. Given that the virus mutates, there are reports of new varieties of Covid-19, the threat of new waves of disease, and the process of manufacturing and confirming the safety of vaccines is a matter of many months. Most countries do not completely abandon quarantine. The current trends make it in demand to study the impact of the digital economy on the level and quality of life under the pressure of Covid-19 (Javaid & Khan, 2021). From a wide variety of aspects of the topic, the main issues can be identified as follows. The first is the problems associated with the methods of digitalization of health care. Secondly, this is the impact of COVID-19 and, due to it, the accelerated development of digitalization on the quality of life.
Thesis
The thesis of this study can be briefly expressed by the idea of increasing the importance of IT in a pandemic and a new stage in the development of society.
IT Manifestations During Covid-19
There are three main areas of application of digital technologies in healthcare to combat Covid-19: communication, monitoring, and support for the provision of medical services. Educational sites about the virus and testing, public relations applications, and remote connections to medical services. These are familiar telemedicine tools that are being actively updated during the pandemic (Wortham, 2020). Educational activities in the era of new social technologies are also aimed at combating the abundance of misinformation about Covid-19.
Facebook launched a special chatbot to combat fake news about a new disease. The old problem of disinformation is exacerbated by the objective novelty of the virus. New facts are constantly being revealed, scientific hypotheses that often contradict each other are proposed, and so on. Leading abstract databases, including paid ones, have made scientific materials on coronaviruses, which include Covid-19, publicly available (Javaid & Khan, 2021). Many scientific journals have temporarily abandoned the pre-review procedure to speed up the process of scientific research in this research area.
Local IT Policies
Contact and disease tracing systems are being developed and tested. For example, the Robert Koch Institute is currently testing an application that uses data from fitness trackers to exchange anonymous medical information for scientific purposes. The main task is to find out whether the symptoms of COVID-19 can also be obtained from basic medical indicators such as pulse. This application is already used by 509,000 users voluntarily of informed consent (European Observatory, 2022a).
In Italy, citizens infected with COVID-19 are faced with the choice of either voluntarily installing a tracking app that shares location, photos, and medical information or resigning themselves to regular visits from the police to check compliance with the lockdown. The government of Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, has approved digital software to track proximity between people via smartphones to prevent secondary transmission from those infected with the coronavirus (European Observatory, 2022b). Since February, the National Epidemiological Surveillance System has been collecting data from the regions daily and publishing infographics on the spread of the virus with a brief description of cases on the Internet.
Telemedicine
Experts from a variety of nations are researching the use of e-health during the spread of Covid-19, assessing its strengths and shortcomings in a new light, and examining the current architecture of the electronic methods employed. Thus, telemedicine has already proven its efficacy in a variety of medical fields, including diabetes, dermatology, and cardiology, providing high-quality distant therapy (Hollander & Carr, 2020). The mentioned important advantages are time-saving and contactless communication.
As such, telemedicine services are rapidly becoming the primary tool to reduce the transmission of Covid-19 within the healthcare system while protecting healthcare workers at high risk of infection. It should be noted that the role of telemedicine in the treatment of infectious diseases was previously small, but in the current situation with the spread of coronavirus, it can increase significantly (Hollander & Carr, 2020). Experts believe that telemedicine can contribute to the reduction of infectious diseases and positively affect the fall of the current epidemiological curve.
Remote Work
In the current negative economic conditions and pessimistic expectations of the population, it is especially important to keep a job. Employment for the majority of the able-bodied population is the main source of income that ensures the former standard of living. The isolation caused by the pandemic has strengthened the role of IT, including it as a tool to help maintain employment in the face of severe restrictions.
It is an integrated infrastructure of the information society and, like other equally important and at the same time familiar systems, it is invisible, revealing itself only in moments of failures and social upheavals, which, to a certain extent, can be attributed to Covid-19. Before the pandemic outbreak, teleworking was most often seen in the context of freelancing and other forms of self-employment (Hollander & Carr, 2020). Far from always, workers in this category perform their tasks outside the office, but it was in this segment that IT most often played the role of key infrastructure for remote work.
International Cooperation
According to WHO, remote consultations for primary care are used, in particular, in Croatia, France, Poland, and Sweden; secondary – in Armenia and Estonia, even more widely in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Israel, and Luxembourg. The global response to the threat of Covid-19 has accelerated the adoption of digital healthcare tools (Javaid & Khan, 2021). However, their application is often hampered not so much technically as by social constraints: procedural, legal, and financial barriers.
From a sociological point of view, there is a significant difference in the contradictions caused by new digital technologies for treatment and means of monitoring movements to stop the spread of the virus. Thirty countries and various organizations have committed to supporting the Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) for Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) (Javaid & Khan, 2021). That is, they are collaborating in the spirit of Universal Health Coverage – striving to make treatment for coronavirus universally accessible.
Specific Approaches to Covid-19
Joint resistance to the global crisis caused by Covid-19 is a valuable experience of international cooperation, exchange of experience for the further development of medicine in general, and its digital component. In the United States, the $2 trillion CARES Act for Covid-19 Relief was passed, which allocated at least $500 million to develop surveillance and data collection systems (The Investopedia Team, 2021). Many European states rely on digital monitoring as a managerial control tool during the period of isolation, when the incidence has already been reduced, but there is still no vaccine or effective treatment.
The European Commission has prepared special recommendations, including on mobile applications, the need to ensure the anonymity of movement data. Moreover, transnational giant Google has developed a global (for 131 countries) people-tracking service that uses user geolocation data so that everyone can plan their travels based on the popularity of various places (Bond, 2020). Ideally, personal data should be deleted upon confirmation of recovery and in the process used solely to combat Covid-19.
Counter Position
The coronavirus pandemic around the world has exposed an already serious environmental problem. Remote work and human connections have increased the energy consumption and carbon footprint of the IT industry. The activity of Internet giants has put the planet under the threat of global warming. The IT sector is responsible for up to four percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in the face of extremely increased demand for services. The figure is twice that of aviation. A significant decline in the consumption of communication services after the coronavirus hype is not expected. Global demand for data sharing is expected to grow by up to 60 percent in 2021 (The BCG, 2021). If the pace is maintained, the share of emissions from IT companies by 2040 will no longer be 2-4, but 14 percent, if no steps are taken towards reducing the environmental impact.
To assess the impact of CO2 emissions from telecom companies, experts suggest taking into account three types of emissions arising from the direct combustion of fuel, during the purchase and transportation of electricity and heat, and mining. The third type of emissions has the greatest environmental impact, as it accounts for more than 60 and sometimes 90 percent of the total pollution from the activities of telecommunications companies (The BCG, 2021). Before embarking on specific activities, telecom companies should evaluate the current strategy and identify its strengths, weaknesses, and solutions.
To be successful in this regard, companies should pay attention to measures to reduce waste, reward employees for implementing environmental programs, maintain open reporting, and choose energy suppliers that do not harm the environment, in particular, receive electricity from renewable sources. There are several ways to reduce overall CO2 emissions that tech giants can, for example, by creating virtual models of processes in other sectors of the economy and artificial intelligence programs that are used in agriculture and logistics. Helping other businesses reduce carbon emissions can be ten times more effective than greening the IT industry itself.
Conclusion
Like other crises, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupts the way of life and, along with new challenges, brightly highlights problems that required a managerial response but were hidden by deceptive stability. Among these is the search for a humanistic balance between social and technological development. For the digital economy, the Covid-19 pandemic is a source of global systemic support. Fear of an unknown viral disease has become an economic and social incentive for its development. The expensive digitization of medicine received legitimate government funding, any business was forced to organize or strengthen its Internet presence to survive in conditions of isolation, and workers adapted to remote work. Recognizing the positive role of IT as supporting infrastructure, one cannot fail to note the actualization of a wide range of technostress problems. The period of isolation stimulates the development of the digital economy, which will allow the future to better assess its advantages and limitations.
References
Bond, S. (2020). Apple and Google build smartphone tool to track COVID-19. NPR. Web.
Brody, N. (2020). It turns out our tech gadgets aren’t as isolating as experts say. The News Tribune. Web.
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. (2022a). COVID-19 health system response monitor (HSRM): Germany. Web.
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. (2022b). COVID-19 health system response monitor (HSRM): Italy. Web.
Hollander, J. E., & Carr, B. G. (2020). Virtually perfect? Telemedicine for Covid-19. The New England Journal of Medicine, 382(1), 1679–1681.
Javaid, M., & Khan, H. I. (2021). Internet of Things (IoT) enabled healthcare helps to take the challenges of COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Oral Biology and Craniofacial Research, 11(2), 209–214.
The BCG. (2021). Telco sector can be game-changer on sustainability, shrinking its own, other industries’ carbon footprints. Web.
The Economist. (2019). Pessimism v progress. Web.
The Investopedia Team. (2021). Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Investopedia. Web.
Vinh, J. (2021). Social media: The screen, the brain, and human nature. Canvas.edu. Web.
Wortham, J. (2020). Has coronavirus made the Internet better? The New York Times. Web.